Most of DS9 season 4 seemed to be written without any idea that Worf was around, perhaps the scripts were outlined before they know Worf was joining, perhaps the writers didn't have any idea. Once Season 5 started, with his interactions with Dax and Martok expanding on the tenuous link with OBrien, Worf became much better.

I think that they purposely downplayed Worf in season 4 becaause they didn't want DS9 to suddenly become the Worf show. On Voyager when they added Seven of Nine she dominated the show and I think the DS9 crew didn't want that happening on DS9.

Wouldn't Micheal Dorn have joined DS9 at least a year before Jeri Ryan joined Voyager? DS9 premiered in January 1993 and Voyager premiered in January of 1995. Both characters joined their respective series during their fourth season.

Yeah, you kind of took my response. That couldn't have been their thinking because Dorn joined DS9 in the Fall of '95, whereas Jeri Ryan joined Voyager in the Fall of '97.

But they might just have decided on their own as a policy not to let Worf dominate the show. He was much better integrated than Seven of Nine was.